Lastest Stories by Colman Andrews

There are few marketing slogans more seductive than “buy now, pay later.” Instant gratification. Getting something you cannot afford with nothing but a promise and a signature (and these days...
Parks and park-like public gardens improve the quality of urban life. What they offer varies from one to the next, but, depending on the particulars, they can be places to exercise or play; walk the...
We associate Halloween, which marks the start of the fall and winter holiday season, with trick-or-treating, costume parties, and jack-o’-lanterns. It has considerably more serious origins, though....
We love our credit cards. These little rectangles of plastic (or, increasingly, metal) were originally used mostly for travel and entertainment. We still use them for those purposes, of course, and...
The United Nations reports that the world’s population is now about 7.6 billion, and it is growing constantly. According to projections by the Population Research Bureau (PRB), an 80-year old...
The United Nations reports that the world’s population is now about 7.6 billion, and it is growing constantly. According to projections by the Population Research Bureau (PRB), an 80-year old...
TV dinners, notorious for their high calorie and sodium counts, aren’t exactly the first food category we think of when we think “healthy eating.” But they’re seductively convenient, and some...
There were 40,100 traffic fatalities and another 4.57 million crash-related injuries serious enough to require medical attention in the United States last year, according to the National Safety...
There are no rules governing the naming of places, countries or otherwise, and in many cases no accepted explanations of how they were named. Some names refer, or at least apparently refer, to...
McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD) isn’t America’s largest fast food chain — there are only about 14,000 stores around the country, as opposed to more than 25,000 Subway outlets. It is, however, the...
The bacon fad may or may not be abating somewhat, but there’s no disputing that we’re eating more of it than ever. Bacon consumption levels were at historical highs last year, according to The...
There’s always been fire in the world — ignited by lightning strikes, heat, or even lava flow. Human beings first learned how to control this mighty force of nature — how to start and stop fire...
Coffee has been starting our engines and keeping us awake — and at least sometimes delighting our palates — for a very long time. The coffee plant is said to come originally from Ethiopia, where...
Bacon is a wonderful thing. It satisfies on many levels. It’s smoky, salty, meaty, slightly sweet, and crispy — unless it’s only lightly cooked, and then it’s just deliciously, unctuously...
“Weather events” is a nice way of describing atmospheric phenomenon that wreak havoc on us, directly or indirectly and in varying degrees of severity. The most obviously calamitous examples of...